There’s something about pistachios that make them a bit fancier than other nuts, don’t you think? So this Pistachio Cake is special, worthy of serving at any occasion! Topped with a cloud of Cream Cheese Whip. Think – subtly tangy whipped cream. Dreamy!
Pistachio cake
This is a Pistachio Cake that has a beautiful soft crumb with lovely pistachio flavour. Which, as strange as that sounds, is rarer than you might think. And I’m speaking from experience here, having tried quite a few recipes over the years!
The reason is pretty simple – this recipe uses almost double the amount of pistachios of typical recipes. Also, I insist on toasting the pistachios first before blitzing into a powder which, as with all nuts, brings out the flavour. It’s a basic step that really makes a difference, especially because there’s a limit on how much pistachio powder can be added into the batter without weighing it down. Does it surprise anyone that we are hitting the limit in this recipe??😊
Plus, pistachios are more expensive than most nuts. So let’s get as much flavour as we can out of them!
Cream Cheese Whip frosting for Pistachio Cake
We’re finishing today’s cake with a generous cloud of what I’ve christened a Cream Cheese Whip. A bit of an invention that came about when I was thinking what to top it with. It’s already rich with pistachio nuttiness so I didn’t think it needed a frosting as sweet and buttery as buttercream. But I felt like plain whipped cream was a little too light and airy, and I wanted a bit of tang to balance out the earthiness of the pistachios.
Solution? Do a Cream Cheese Frosting whipped cream mash up!
Bonus: It’s essentially a stabilised whipped cream which means it will stay fluffy for days without weeping or deflating like regular whipped cream.
Ingredients in Pistachio Cake
Here’s what you need to make this Pistachio Cake. Freshly blitzed, freshly toasted pistachio nuts is key to ensure you can actually taste pistachio in this cake.
PISTACHIOs
I use pre-shelled pistachio kernels. Nice and convenient as someone has done the shelling for me!
I prefer unsalted pistachios so I can control the amount of salt in the cake. Saltiness of nuts always seems to vary depending on brand / source. But if your pistachios are salted, just skip the salt in the recipe.
To shell your own pistachios, use 225g / 7 oz (125g/4.4 oz once shelled) and reduce the toasting time to 7 minutes (because shelled kernels tend to be softer).
⚠️ Not all pistachios are created equal. The older they are, the less flavour they have. The better the quality, the better the flavour. I’ve tried this with regular grocery store ones, and better quality ones. I still got good pistachio flavour with the regular grocery store ones. This was my baseline for this recipe.
for the CAKE BATTER
Make sure your yogurt and egg are at room temperature before making the batter. If they are fridge cold, it will make the batter cold which means the cake won’t rise as well in the oven. Speaking from experience here! I tried to skip the step of bringing yogurt to room temperature – and was penalised for it.😝
Flour – Just plain / all-purpose flour. This recipe will work with self raising flour but it probably won’t rise as well (common theme using self raising flour rather than flour + baking powder). If you use self raising flour, skip the baking soda and baking powder.
Baking powder and baking soda (bi-carb soda) – These both make cakes, muffins etc rise but have different effects on different batters. As a general rule, baking soda is 3x stronger than baking powder.
Dead baking powder – If you haven’t used your baking powder for a while (say, a month or so), check it’s still good. Baking powder can lose its rising powder even before the expiry date!
Substitute – if you don’t have baking soda you can substitute with extra baking powder (see recipe notes for amount). However, expect the surface of the cake to dome and the crumb is a touch less soft. It’s mainly a visual thing though, so it’s not a big deal!
Yogurt – Much loved baking trick to make cakes and muffins with a lovely moist crumb compared to using thinner liquids such as milk. The extra role it plays here is that the acidity in yogurt gives the baking soda a kick start to make the cake rise. This is why sometimes you see a tiny amount of vinegar in cakes, like Red Velvet Cake. Looks totally out of place, but serves a purpose to get the baking soda going.
Egg – Use a “large egg” which weighs ~50-55g/2oz each, sold in cartons labelled “large eggs” weighing 600-660g / 1.2 lb for a dozen. This recipe is reasonably forgiving so don’t fret if your egg is a bit larger or smaller, just don’t use, say, an ostrich egg or quail egg. 😂 See here for how to scale if your egg is massively different in size.
Butter AND oil – Butter adds lovely flavour but cakes are not as moist and don’t have as good a shelf life as cakes made with oil. But oil is not as tasty! In this recipe, I like to use both so I have the best of both worlds – lovely buttery flavour and moistness plus shelf life from oil. This trick doesn’t work with all cakes, it depends on the batter. Very happy it works here!
Sugar – Not too much, just 3/4 cup (150g). Aside from my preference for cakes that are not overly sweet, I noticed that the sweeter the cake, the less pistachio flavour came through.
Caster sugar / superfine sugar is my default for baking because it’s finer than regular sugar (granulated sugar) so you can ensure it dissolves easily into mixtures. However, for this recipe, regular / granulated white sugar is fine. (Don’t use brown sugar, it will likely make the batter too damp).
Green colouring – The pistachios alone will not give the cake a pistachio green colour. Rather, it comes out brown. So it needs a helping hand from food colouring if you want your cake to have the colour pictured in this post.
I use 4 small drops to achieve the colour pictured. Feel free to add more if you want a greener cake. Once baked, the cake is a touch darker than the uncooked batter. Here’s a comparison of the batter and the colour of the cooked cake:
Cream cheese WHIP
Here’s what you need for the Cream Cheese Whip frosting. It’s essentially Whipped Cream plus some cream cheese which stabilises and enriches it, as well as giving it a lovely touch of tang which works really well with the nutty pistachio flavour.
Cream cheese – Softened to room temperature, so it’s easy to beat until fluffy and smooth.
Whipping cream – Make sure the cream you get can be whipped because not all cream is made for whipping. Some are dolloping creams (ie thick cream you dollop onto cakes, like sour cream) or thin pouring creams that you stir into things like soup. If it’s a whipping cream, it will say on the carton.
Lemon juice – For a smidge of extra tang which I think goes really well with the pistachio flavour. However, not critical. Consider it an enhancement rather than essential! (PS Doesn’t make it overly lemony. I originally tried a stronger lemon flavour and found it overwhelmed the pistachio flavour).
Vanilla – For flavour. I tried without and missed it.
Salt – Standard practice in sweet baking recipes these days as it brings out the other flavours. We only use a pinch so you won’t taste salt.
How to make Pistachio Cake
You won’t need an electric beater to make the cake part. Just mix it up with a wooden spoon! (See FAQ section for other cake-making methods I tried).
1. MAKE PISTACHIO POWDER
Please don’t skip toasting the pistachios. It not only brings out the pistachio flavour (especially imperative if you get pistachios from regular grocery stores like I do), it makes them crisper so they grind up more easily into a powder rather than turning into a paste.
Toast the pistachios in the oven for 12 minutes or until they smell nutty and they are crisp (eat to check).
Blitz – Let them cool completely then blitz into a powder. It’s very quick using a NutriBullet as I do – literally 2 x 2 second pulses. Some pistachios lumps are ok / welcome, but you want it to be at least 95% powder.
⚠️ Be careful not to let the pistachios turn into a paste which will happen if you blitz for too long.
2. MAKE THE PISTACHIO cake
Break up pistachio clumps – Whisk the pistachio powder with the flour. Then use your fingers to break up any obvious pistachio powder clumps into a powder ie where pistachio powder has gotten a bit pasty so they stick together. Adding flour makes this step easier because if you pinch the plain pistachio powder, it sticks together into a paste. Some small clumps remaining are fine, they will dissolve in the oven.
Then whisk in remaining dry ingredients (baking powder, baking soda, salt).
Whisk wet – Put all the wet ingredients into a separate medium bowl. Then whisk until combined.
Combine wet and dry – Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients. Use a rubber spatula to mix them together but stop when the flour is just about mixed in. (Why? Because overmixed batter = tough cake, and we still have extra mixing to come when we add the food colouring).
Make it pistachio green! Add 4 small drops of green food colouring and mix it in. Goal – pistachio green colour. (Note: the cake becomes slightly darker in colour once baked, see above for raw batter vs cooked cake comparison.) Then mix until the batter is fully combined. You may have some small lumps from pistachio powder clumps (these will dissolve in the oven) and a few random whole bits of pistachio.
⚠️ If using gel rather than liquid colouring which is much more intense, use a tiny toothpick smear instead. See recipe card notes for directions.
💡 We add the food colouring in this step because bizarrely, I found the colouring doesn’t work as well if mixed in with the wet ingredients, I needed double the amount of colouring. I can’t explain it, I just know what I experienced!
Pour the batter into a lined pan then spread it out in the pan. You don’t need to smooth the surface perfectly because the batter will spread in the oven.
💡Tip : Because it’s a thickish batter, I prefer to grease the pan with butter rather than oil spray. This is because butter makes the paper stick more firmly to the pan so it won’t slide as you spread the batter.
Bake for 40 minutes at 180°C/350°F (160°C fan-forced), rotating at the 30 minute mark so the cake browns evenly on the surface. The cake is ready when a skewer inserted into the centre comes out without a batter smear (although it will be a bit wet because this is a damp cake).
Cool completely before spreading on the Cream Cheese Whip, else it will melt! 10 minutes in the pan then about 1 hour on a rack.
3. MAKING THE CREAM CHEESE Whip
Cream cheese first – Beat the cream cheese until soft and fluffy. Take a good 2 minutes on medium high speed to do this so you cream it really well. This is important because the cream is cold so it won’t blend in easily with the cream cheese (ie when you whip the cream, it can cause cream cheese lumps). To avoid this problem, you want to beat the cream cheese until it is really soft and creamy so it mixes in seamlessly with the cream.
Whip cream – Then add the cream, sugar, lemon, vanilla and salt, and beat until the cream is whipped. This frosting will look and behave like regular whipped cream, but it is a little richer thanks to the cream cheese. (Which is why it will stay fluffy for days rather than weeping like regular cream).
Spread the frosting onto the cake, making lovely big swirl patterns. A small offset spatula (pictured) makes short work of this (handy tool for cake frosting).
Sprinkle with finely chopped pistachios. And now the moment has arrived – yes, let’s eat it!
I’m so happy with how this cake turned out. It’s one of those recipes where I’ve tried quite a number of other recipes over the years but never found what I was looking for. So I decided to come up with my own.
I really like that it’s not too sweet and it relies on the richness from the natural oil of pistachios rather than excessive amounts of butter or oil. And I love the soft texture of the crumb, and that it’s still like freshly made 3 – 4 days later. Can’t say that about many cakes!
I really hope you give it a go one day, and love it as much as I do! – Nagi x
Pistachio Cake FAQ
The main thing was getting enough pistachio flavour. I kept increasing the amount up and up, until I hit a point that it was weighing down the cake batter too much, then tweaking the amount of flour and rising agents (baking powder and baking soda) to get enough rise in the crumb.
I think the amount of pistachios I use maxes out the nuts-to-flour ratio, which means it has the maximum real pistachio flavour you can achieve without resorting to pistachio paste (gourmet) or liquid essence (does such a thing exist??) or resorting to more technical methods (like pureeing).
Then the other aspect I experimented with was the batter making method. The two main ways to make a batter are hand-mixed, which usually involves oil and/or melted butter, or a traditional “cream butter and sugar” method which starts with softened butter and calls for an electric beater.
Firstly, the “cream butter and sugar” method does have a more buttery flavour but the batters I tried just couldn’t take enough pistachios to get good pistachio flavour in the cake. The more pistachio I used, the more it weighed it down. Which explains why so many pistachio cake recipes I see online use considerably less pistachios.
Regardless, even using less pistachios, the shelf life of the cake wasn’t great. It was drier and firmer than ideal even the next day. I think the nuts was drying it out. I didn’t expect that. Usually ground nuts makes cakes more moist (think – cakes made with almond meal).
Anyway! Once I figured out the baseline pistachios required for actual pistachio flavour in the cake, then it just came down to method that would yield the softest cake with a nice rise, which turned out to be the hand mixed method using yogurt instead of milk for the liquid. (Tried and proven bakers’ trick).
Toasting the nuts was key – crisps them up so they blitz more easily into a powder, and, importantly, bringing out the pistachio flavour more.
The other irritating thing was to figure out was the baking soda v baking powder balance. As always, I hoped I could just use one of them (preferably baking powder). But it made the cake dome. Not a big deal, but flat is nicer, and also means the cake is rising more evenly on the inside.
So I ended up using a combination of both, for the best end result. 🙂
I also tried – a version with stronger lemon flavour in the cake and the frosting (suppressed the pistachio flavour, I thought), and adding a little almond extract which quite a few recipes seem to do, saying that it enhances the pistachio flavour. I’m afraid I don’t agree, I just found it overwhelmed the precious pistachio flavour.
I’m afraid I haven’t tried. I’m just concerned that it won’t rise enough, because the pistachios weigh the batter down more than regular cake batters. Love to know if anyone tries it so I can update the recipe notes!
Don’t be! It’s actually quite a forgiving cake that is just mixed by hand. It is safer and easier to make than typical cakes that start with “cream the butter and sugar…..”. In my experience, this is the step that most people get wrong which makes cakes greasy or not rise properly etc. However, in this recipe, we use melted butter instead which means this is entirely mixed by hand. Which makes it a low risk cake!
Yes. Just wait until the moment you smell the blitzed pistachios…. You’ve never smelt pistachios like that before!
The only catch is to ensure you use good quality fresh pistachios, not stale ones that expired months ago that you found at the back of your pantry. Grocery store pistachios are fine, but obviously the better the quality, the better the flavour!
I read this on a number of online recipes so out of curiosity I gave it a go. I didn’t think it enhanced it at all, but rather, I could taste almond more than I could the pistachio flavour. (I only used 1/4 teaspoon). I am not sure where this theory came from but I’m afraid I don’t agree with it.
Sorry, I haven’t tried. Just getting the pistachio version right took up enough time! (See above testing notes 🤯)
Yes! Double the recipe to make a tall 2 layer cake, or split the double batter across 3 pans for a 3 layer cake. I would scale up the Cream Cheese Whip by 50% or even double it, and use it to sandwich the layers and decorate the top and sides.
Less sweet than typical Western cakes, with only 3/4 cup sugar in the whole cake. If you like French and Japanese cakes (which, in my opinion, are at the bottom end of the sweetness scale), you will enjoy this cake. People who love very sweet American-style cakes frosted with copious amounts of sugar-rich buttercream may find this cake not sweet enough for their tastes.
Also, as a side note, I found more sugar = less pistachio flavour. Seems to suppress it?
The cake and frosting will keep for 4 days in the fridge. The cake will stay lovely and moist for 5 to 6 days, actually. The frosting will not weep or deflate in 4 days (unlike regular whipped cream) because the cream cheese stabilises it. After 4 days, I find that the Cream Cheese Whip starts to make the cake a bit wetter than ideal on the the surface.
Always serve at room temperature. Cold cake just isn’t the same (hard, drier), and also you can’t taste the pistachios as much.
Yes, you sure can! Cream cheese frosting would be great (use the one in my Carrot Cake recipe) as would vanilla buttercream (use the one in my Vanilla Cake recipe), however, be mindful that these are much sweeter and richer than the Cream Cheese Whip.
Regular whipped cream would be lovely too but I’d only use it if you are planning to eat it all on the same day.
For a quick solution, buy a tub of creme fraiche or marscapone.
Cup sizes differ slightly between the US (1 cup = 226ml) and most of the rest of the world (250 ml). While the difference is not enough to make a difference in most recipes, for some baking recipes it can mean the difference between success and failure.
I made this recipe using US cups, Australian cups and the weights I’ve provided and there was no difference in the end result. So the difference in cup sizes does not matter for this recipe!
Watch how to make it
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Pistachio Cake
Ingredients
- 125g/ 4.4oz (just shy 1 cup) pistachio kernels , unsalted (Note 1)
Dry ingredients for batter:
- 1 cup plain flour (all-purpose flour)
- 1 1/4 tsp baking powder (check yours still still good if it's old)
- 1/4 tsp baking soda (bi-carb soda) (Note 2)
- 1/4 tsp cooking salt / kosher salt
Wet:
- 3/4 cup yogurt , plain, full-fat, at room temperature (Note 3)
- 60g/ 4 tbsp unsalted butter , melted and slightly cooled
- 1/4 cup plain oil (canola, vegetable, cottonseed etc)
- 3/4 cup caster sugar (superfine sugar)
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 large egg (50-55g/2oz), at room temperature
Colouring (optional)
- 4 drops green food colouring , optional (Note 4)
Cream cheese whip:
- 100g/ 3.5oz cream cheese , at room temperature (block best, tub ok)
- 3/4 cup thickened cream (heavy cream) or whipping cream (Note 5)
- 3 tbsp caster sugar (superfine sugar)
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- 2 tsp lemon juice (optional)
- Pinch of salt
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F (160° fan-forced). Grease and line a 20 cm / 8" round cake pan with baking paper (parchment paper).
Pistachio powder:
- Toast – Spread the pistachios on a tray. Bake for 12 minutes, shaking once halfway, or until the pistachios smell nutty and are crisp (eat to check!). Fully cool on the tray (~15 minutes).
- Blitz – Measure out 3/4 cup pistachios (save the rest for decorating). Blitz into a powder using pulses, taking care not to turn it into a paste. I use a NutriBullet (2 x 2 sec bursts). Spice grinder or small food processor would also work. Some larger pistachio bits are fine, but aim for 98% powder. (Note 6)
Cake:
- Break up clumps – Put the pistachio powder in a large bowl with the flour. Briefly whisk to combine then use your fingers to rub pistachio powder clumps into a powder. No need to be meticulous here, just get the larger ones.
- Dry – Add the remaining Dry ingredients then whisk to combine.
- Wet – Put all the Wet ingredients in a separate bowl and whisk until combined.
- Combine wet & dry – Pour the Wet into the Dry ingredients bowl. Use a rubber spatula to mix until the flour is almost mixed in.
- Colour it! Add the food colouring. Then finish mixing the batter until mostly lump free (small lumps will dissolve when baked).
- Scrape the batter into the pan and spread out it out (no need to be meticulous, the surface will smooth out in the oven).
- Bake for 40 minutes, turning the pan at 30 minutes so the surface browns evenly, or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out without batter on it.
- Cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a cooling rack and cool completely. (~1 hour)
- Chop the reserved pistachios (mix of finely chopped and larger chunks).
- Spread the cake with the Cream Cheese Whip (steps below). Sprinkle with chopped pistachios. Cut and eat!
Cream cheese whip:
- Beat the cream cheese for a good 2 minutes on medium high until it's really light and creamy, scraping down the sides as needed. Do not shortcut this step, else you may end up with cream cheese lumps!
- Whip – Add the remaining ingredients then beat until the cream is softly whipped and spreadable, about 1 minute on medium high.
Recipe Notes:
Nutrition Information:
Need cake? I hear you.
Here are some of my personal favourites.
Life of Dozer
This is what happens when you become a senior citizen and can’t move fast enough to get out of the way of the young ones. 😂
Delicious and easy to make. My family loved the pistachio flavour and the soft crumb.
You wont be disappointed with this one. Just make sure your ingredients are at room temp, as Nagi says, to get the rise which brings the soft crumb.
Hi Nagi! Do you think this would go well with a thick lemon glaze instead, like the one on your lemon cake? Thank you! (:
I absolutely love this cake and have made it twice now, But I can’t seem to make the icing thick. I’ve double checked my quantities and they are all correct. I have to put the icing into the fridge for a while to be able to put it on the cake and even then it is a bit runny, Any ideas what I may be doing wrong?
Delicious and very easy. I added some melted pistachio butter to the cream cheese whip (a gift from Italy), and added some crushed freeze dried strawberries on top which added colour and went well with the pistachio flavour
Delicious cake and not too sweet! I especially love that I can taste the pistachios. Definitely will be making this again!
This cake is DELICIOUS! I made it tonight for my SIL’s birthday and everybody loved it. Not too sweet, very moist, and creamy icing. It was also really easy to make – I’m not much of a cake baker but it came out perfect. Will make this again!!
Made this cake a couple of days ago, it is lovely, especially the ‘whip’. I will try this recipe using walnuts and add coffee to the whip, hope it goes well. Thank you for all your recipies.
Can I make the cake dairy free? I can’t tolerate the protein in dairy 🙁
Here in Europe one can buy a pistachio butter (a bit like peanut butter/ paste. So I melt two tablespoons in the microwave and then blend it into the frosting. It really gives the frosting a lovely texture, flavour and slight green colour.
Yum! I’m jealous, that sounds divine. 🇦🇺
Hey Nagi
This is my first cake ever! Made for my sons 32nd birthday and with GLUTEN FREE self raising flour.
Absolute hit except I had to make the topping twice – first try with ‘whipping cream’ (fail) and then with ‘thickened cream’ (perfect). Added lemon zest to both whipped topping and then sprinkled on top with pistachios.
Apparently I’m now a Cake Queen .,.. rather ironic at 58 years. All down to your excellent recipe.
Beautifully moist and not too sweet.
Thank you. More like this please so I can continue my perfect baking run!
Will this work as cupcakes?
This pistachio cake is something special. The smell of the toasting pistachios! The texture of the crumb 🤌🏻. Not too sweet. Will be making again and again
Absolutely agree! There’s something so luxurious about pistachios that instantly elevates any dessert, and this Pistachio Cake sounds like pure elegance on a plate. The idea of pairing it with a Cream Cheese Whip is simply genius—light, subtly tangy, and just the right amount of indulgence. I can already picture that fluffy, dreamy topping perfectly complementing the nutty, delicate flavors of the cake. This is the kind of dessert that not only looks stunning but feels like a special treat with every bite. Perfect for celebrating life’s little moments and big occasions alike!
Thanks for sharing
This cake is super easy to make and absolutely delicious. Was a total hit for a family member’s birthday.
Nagi, this cake is very fantastic! Thank you so much for sharing this amazing recipe!
Wow! Thought it would be good and it was. Tip! If you are near Costco buy their Kirkland roasted pistachios – saved 30 minutes of the cooking time. An absolute winner – won’t have to worry about left overs – I don’t think there will be any.
This cake turned out perfectly and kept very well in the refrigerator for a couple-of-days. I like that the frosting held up too and was a lighter version. This recipe is a keeper for sure.
Beautiful cake, Nagi!! The topping is delicious. I think the cake is good as a standalone even without the topping 😉 thank you so much for sharing this recipe!
Followed the recipe as per instructions, except I put all the pistachios in the NutriBullet, (didn’t see that instruction) 🤣. Had to sieve the pistachio meal to get some for decoration, but luckily there were still a few chunkier pieces. Made it for a friends birthday, it was a hit. Definitely a cake for grown ups. Will keep this one on my favourites for future use. Thanks Nagi. You’ve done it again.
My son’s second birthday cake was a pistachio cake with even more pistachios (more ground pistachios plus natural pistachio cream). He and his friends devoured it and since then I make pancake version once in a while. Not only for grown-ups.
This cake is absolutely amazing Nagi! Thanks so much for sharing!!